Sudden & unexpected rent increase

bach230

My husband and i have been in a 50% shared ownership property since january 07. we didn't manage to get our mortgage up and running until august last year but were paying rent from when we moved in to the property. we have just received a letter from our housing association today informing us that our rent is going up over £170. apparently they review it every 12 months but this is the first time we've ever had any increase. we currently pay £156.90 (£135.40 + £21.50 service charge). The letter states that we will have to pay £325.00 + £5.94 service charge from the 1st october 2008 giving us a total of £330.94 rent a month. as my husband and mum have said this is an increase of over 100%.
We already pay over £300 for our mortgage so this will mean we will be paying over £600 (more like £700) for our share of the property, not including all the other bills we have to pay.
Neither my mum or my husband think that the housing association can do this, it appears that we are not the only ones affected as our neighbour a couple of doors down has also had the same letter. pretty much everyone that lives in these houses (and flats) are either single parents or young families, not many young couples like us in them but i'm sure most of us can't really afford this increase easily.

Has anyone got any advice on this at all?

Chris2685

That sounds a bit nasty of the HA. They get people onto these schemes stating all the way through that they are affordable! Where do they get off increasing the price by 100%? If they keep doing that, you're going to end up paying more on the 'discounted' rent than you would have if you had a mortgage on the HA's share!

thepinkladez_2

i am not sure with regards to housing association rentals but standard rentals can increase upto 6% a year.

clutton_2

talk to your councils local private tenancy officer and ask for a referral to the Rent Officer to have your rent assessed independently

bach230

thanks for that clutton. do you know how we would go about finding out councils local private tenancy officer?? would this cost us a fee to do this? or is this something we could go to the citizens advice bureau about?

sooz

Call your council on monday morning (or look at your council website now - under private housing)
It is a council department & should be free (if you ignore the huge costs of your council tax).

Rabiddog_2

IS this your "discounted" rent merely reverting to the true market rate tho? Otherwise I would certainly agree that 100% is steep, even for Joe Rachmann.
Look on the bright side.. your service charge is really cheap!
Who sets the 6% cap on std rentals? In private sector surely its completely open to charge what you like??

poppysarah

Ring shelter, ring the local council and go to your MP.

I feel shared ownership is a con. A false sense of affordability that has come crashing down on your head.
I imagine the HA won't have broken any laws so you need to be brave and kick some serious butt to get this sort of increase outlawed.
(If they have broken the rules then it'll be easier to resolve so fingers crossed!)

poppy10_2

Which housing association is it?

bach230

the housing association is Nexus (wesy mercia housing group)

SquatNow

An excelent example of what we have been warning people about for ages.

Shared ownership is a con.